One of the most important aspects of chip fabrication, such as complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication, entails the contact definitions. In a highly complex chip design, there are many contacts to interconnect a multitude of devices within the chip. Devices such as transistors and diodes specific to a particular circuit have contacts dedicated to that circuit. Parallel and series circuits are generally made by fabricating devices specific to that circuit, and a circuit requiring the connections of the devices in a particular way is separately fabricated. If a different circuit comprising the same device types but requiring a different circuit connection is needed, a new set of devices with the required connections would have to be fabricated separately. Such a process reduces real estate in a chip and gives rise to other complications, such as reliability issues during fabrication, reliability issues during operation, and increased heat buildup in the chip.
It can therefore be appreciated that it would be desirable to have an alternative system and method for forming contact definitions.